


A Lion Still Has Claws

by ishie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:19:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a girl Cersei dreamt often of the day that Rhaegar Targaryen would take her to wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lion Still Has Claws

**Author's Note:**

> For Casterlys prompt at [SHORT AND SWEET, A SUMMER FICATHON](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18194.html?thread=1742610#t1742610). Title from _The Rains of Castamere_!
> 
> Pre-series, no spoilers past the first book or season.

As a girl Cersei dreamt often of the day that Rhaegar Targaryen would take her to wife. His hand on hers before the altar at the Sept of Baelor, maidens weeping in the streets with jealousy as he bent to kiss her lips. A train of a thousand courtiers wending their way to where the Red Keep sprawled atop Aegon's High Hill, its gates held wide to welcome the new princess before she began her journey to Dragonstone.

Instead, she stood beside her new husband in the dark, cramped septry that lay in the shadow of the tower where Rhaegar's wife had died in agony. With his heavy, ugly cloak clasped about her shoulders, Robert had mashed his mouth against hers and twisted a nipple with his huge fingers before turning to their audience and bellowing, "To the victor the ripest spoils!"

Oh, how she hated him for that day. For so many things, too many to count. They piled up like wheat at the harvest and blew away on the wind and always there were fresh hurts to take their place. But Robert had been right, in the end. His bride was riper than he knew, though he would never be the victor he named. To the kingdom, he was the lord triumphant, the strong and beautiful king by conquest. The new husband to a maiden fair, who held her head high while his ministers and Hand dragged their feet and delayed her investiture with the flimsiest of excuses.

But it was her brother who won him the throne, and it was Jaime's seed that had already taken root by the time Robert Baratheon shuddered over her and whispered a dead girl's name.

By the time he stirred himself from his cups long enough to remember the lioness he had wedded and made his way to her bed again, her belly was hard and swollen with the heir he craved. The boy she named for a long-forgotten lordling of her husband's house. The baseborn brother of a Storm King, who held the sixth Storm's End until it crumbled into the sea.

That long-dead Baratheon was as useless as all the rest of them have been. Robert with his sour wine-stink, the scent of perfumed whores still clinging to his hands and beard when he remembers she exists and stumbles to her bed in the dark of night. Steely Stannis, whose prickly honor cannot withstand the slightest of insults, whose prick can't seem to find his own wife above twice a year. And little Renly, whose eyes follow the men at arms at their swordplay with a hunger that he cannot possibly think he masks.

But her Joffrey is nothing like the dark, ugly stags that surround them. A beautiful lion's cub he is, with his golden hair and green eyes, so sweet as he suckles at her breast. Cersei sees herself in the point of his little chin, the snub of his nose. The rosebud mouth is all Jaime, even her bedmaids see it, though they'll never know how close they come to the truth.

She makes sure of it.

Her father visits just once after the prince is born. Tywin Lannister stands tall and proud in her receiving rooms, lions gleaming and snarling at his shoulders and from the pommel of his sword. Candlelight shines against the smooth dome of his scalp, turns his neat beard to a thousand shades of gold. But his eyes are as icy as the North as he stares at her child, the crown prince, born to the queen in waiting.

"You'll produce another within the year if you know what's good for you, girl."

 _Girl_. Once, she would have pouted and cried at his indifference, but Cersei has hardened her heart against the hurts he deals out.

"If the Mother favors me," she says instead. _And Jaime, too._ She uses all the tricks she knows to keep Robert's seed from spilling in her womb. No Baratheon will nestle under her heart.

"Your investiture will take place at the moon's turn. I've secured the blessing of the High Septon at long last, since you couldn't be bothered to do it yourself."

That curls her hands into claws at her sides. While the Lord of Casterly Rock sat sullen and silent atop his piles of gold, she has done little but flatter and simper at that fat goat for months. But her every attempt was met with empty platitudes and dire imprecations ripped straight from the mouth of Jon Arryn, she knew. The sour old man whispered in Robert's ear and Cersei's star slipped farther in the sky every day.

_The kingdoms are still uneasy, Your Grace. We must make sure the lords' allegiances are secure before we ask them to kneel before a queen. This delicate peace will not hold if any object to the lion rising above the rest._

Her belly swelled with Robert's precious brat and his coffers with her father's coin, three generations of Targaryen blood staining his hands and throne, but Cersei Lannister in a crown was a step too far?

She had dreamed once of ruling beside her noble husband, of showing her father that she could rise to glory as well as a son. But the gods had turned those dreams inside out and blessed her with shit where she should have had rubies.

Cersei soothes the squalling infant in her arms. His skin is pink and smooth, his eyes as green as the grass that swept across the summit of Casterly Rock.

"Thank you, Father," she says. "I will never forget all that you have done for me."


End file.
